


To-Do List

by YogurtTime



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Nakamaru's suffering, implied polyamory, the list
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogurtTime/pseuds/YogurtTime
Summary: Taguchi keeps a list of names. The first thing to do is to make sure it’s not a vendetta roster. The second is to find out if you’re even on it. Not that you care or anything…





	To-Do List

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written December of 2011.

 

 

When they first find the list, Koki is pretty sure he’s seen a glimpse of it before. It was some time ago, all professionally laminated and poking out of a notebook. All he’d seen at the time was the word, “List” in obnoxious Comic sans font. He isn’t all that sure why he’d assumed it was a grocery list at the time—being that it was laminated—but in hindsight, yes, he _was_ the first to find it.

Under present circumstances, (the five of them killing time in an NTV conference room before the studio shoot) it’s Kame uttering a low and curious, “What is this?” that makes all their heads swivel.

 _Of course_ it’s not cool to go through someone else’s bag, but in Kame’s defense-- as he put delicately at the time-- “it was just sticking out so I had to have a look” which only triggered Koki’s silent triumphant, resonant, but suspiciously Jin-like crow of, “Ha _ha~_ that’s what she said!”

(Koki would never say that aloud. He tried once and it just didn’t sound the same. And in Japanese it comes off as either non-gender specific or too wordy.)

Digressions damned, Koki’s never seen Taguchi make it across a room that fast. One second he’s somewhere behind Koki, the next he’s vaulted over their meeting table and snatched the laminate out of Kame’s clutches.

“ _This_ ,” Taguchi replies poignantly. “is mine.”

Kame squints. “There are names on it.”

Taguchi gives him a generous nod and smile. “Mm, that’s true.” He appears to leave it at that as he slips the laminate neatly-- face down-- back in his bag.

“It’s a list, you guys!” Kame says to the room in general. “A list of _names_.”

Koki glances at Taguchi. He looks serene, in that particularly determined way, stiff-backed sort of; the way he gets when he’s annoyed. No reason to relate how Koki knows that. His working theory at the moment is knowledge by exposure. Anyway, Taguchi’s also determinedly not looking at the rest of them.

Kame clears his throat. “...with the title, ‘ **To-Do List** ’.”

The room is silent with a careful processing of this particular revelation. It’s not until Koki frowns at Taguchi that he spots the curl of his mouth; a secret smile, some type of supression, lips trembling. _Ah_. There’s a pun here somewhere.

And then he gets it.

“What exactly do you mean to _do_ to the names on that list?” Maru queries a little loftily before Koki can say anything. He also sort of wishes he, like Maru, could ask something that naive with a straight face. (This would also mean knowing Taguchi a bit less, but Koki doesn’t want to get into that in his head at the moment.)

There’s a very soft moment between the five of them as he, Taguchi, Ueda and Kame watch Maru think about this along with its clear implications. His eyes widen as he stares off blankly at the wall opposite in a still, silent, and burgeoning horror.

Maru whirls sharply in his seat and fixes his gaze on Taguchi. “Why?” he demands shortly. It comes out as more of an accusation than a sincere query. There’s a very slim chance that he actually _does_ want to know the icky details.

Taguchi shrugs. “It was for fun when I started it but now I enjoy updating it. It’s interesting to update and shift names around because of circumstance.”

It’s an unblinking and drawling pronouncement. Breezy as if Maru’s soft-eyed judging gaze isn’t trained on him; as it is, though, Koki’s already wondering what “circumstance” is supposed to mean.

Now Koki knows how these things work. Taguchi does something inexplicable and someone will ask him _why_ in a helpless tone and he’d explain while leaving a doorway for Koki to cut in with something witty. They’d laugh and move on.

Today, though, it’s different because as much as Maru has swivelled his chair around again and Ueda never actually displayed _any_ interest in the first place apart from a brief sardonic smile, Kame still stares at the bag containing the laminate with a stony grimace.

“So am I on it?” Kame asks matter-of-factly.

The room freezes. Even Ueda’s gaze looks alert as they all zero in on Taguchi. Koki thinks he stops breathing. Taguchi surveys them each interchangeably, taking in their expressions with a levelled sort of enigma in his gaze.

“Well?” Kame presses and Maru removes his glasses (when did that start?) and begins to massage the bridge of his nose.

Taguchi purses his lips and give out a complacent sigh, looking at the clock on the wall. Ueda looks between the both of them with a vaguely insipid gaze then seemingly shrugs it off again. Koki would _totally_ interrupt with a subject change except for the small issue of his wanting to hear Taguchi’s reply.

Kame’s stare doesn’t quit and Taguchi’s visible attempt to quell the issue with silence does nothing but fill the room with an aching conflict. Finally, Taguchi rocks on the balls of his feet and gives Kame a sidelong. “It’s just a list, Kazuya.” And _then_ he lights up with that hearty smile, complete row of teeth, eyes all a-squint with the first rate joviality that Koki’s pretty used to.

“So...in other words...I’m not on it,” Kame affirms, mouth curving in a decisive form of displeasure.

Koki thinks the room can hear him swallow. Maru coughs and a bullet-speed exchange of silent conversation goes on between the corner of Ueda’s eye and Maru’s narrow stare.

“So I’m _not_ on it?” Kame reiterates once more, arms folding, giving Taguchi a withering once-over.

Taguchi chews his bottom lip, smoothing out the creases in his trousers in a dedicated, simple gesture of feigned distraction. “This is a long break, isn’t it?” he finally remarks, leaning engagingly against the meeting room table.

Koki has always considered Kame’s brand of snide to be one of the more impressive brands. His sigh alone seems laced with vitriol. “Fine. Sure, I get it,” he offers languidly. “I figured you were too professional to put any of us on there anyway.”

The room freezes again, but this time there’s something very different in the air. A new consideration floats down from the ceiling like a cloud and the four of them exchange glances before turning uneasily once more to stare. Taguchi doesn’t move; doesn’t speak; doesn’t blink as the silence curves around them, dangling the unasked question like an ensnaring temptation.

Seconds pass. They watch Taguchi’s face, devoid of expression, slowly and suddenly twitch as his eyes dart off to the right in a horrifying signal of guilt.

Pandemonium erupts. Koki sucks in a breath a little too quickly which sends him into an abrupt coughing fit. Maru jumps from his chair, palms landing flat on the table surface with a sharp smack and would have rained the room with a full-on tirade were it not for Kame snapping out into his own version of outrage. It peaks at a colourful crescendo in which Koki grabs the table, wheezing and Ueda-- adjusting his wig at the time, but the closest within reachable distance-- pats him with it, the locks grazing over Koki’s back.

“... _never_ in all my twenty-eight years!” Maru finishes, looking peculiarly fierce.

Koki straightens. The room is in a breathing silence, most of its tension directed at Taguchi who stands there looking a little nonplussed.

“Ah,” Taguchi finally says, eyes fixed on the clock beyond their irate and scandalised stares. “I’m glad we had this talk, you guys...”

He sidesteps Kame on his way out and strides quite naturally out the door.

Of course, the list remains tucked safely in a notebook in his bag.

 

Koki gets it. Sort of. Well, the basic idea of it. He has his own mental list of celebrities he would totally let do him. Angelina Jolie and Rain aside, there’s a definite ew factor to the idea of Taguchi sitting in front of a computer, typing those names up in a selected typeface, printing it, and taking it all to be laminated. What’s more that it’s of people he actually _knows_ and sees everyday. Well, that’s the part Koki doesn’t get.

He doesn’t get how Taguchi can face the nature of having to look the people who would be on his _actual_ list in the eye every day knowing there’s a sheet of paper somewhere with the-- perhaps-- mortifying truth.

And then there’s the question none of them can bring themselves to ask. Koki thought about it, of course. The second the list presented itself, he considered what he’d do when he saw his name, but all that’s really not the point. The _point_ is that the _the others_ are going to be morbidly curious about it and someone has got to ask.

Who would Taguchi put on his list? Is it everyone but Kame? Or is it just one poor soul?

“So who is it, you think?”

Koki nearly jumps out of his skin. He hadn’t quite noticed that the members sans Taguchi had somehow managed to push three plastic chairs towards him. Now they huddle down in a lopsided circle, knees touching.

“Eh?”

“Come _on_ , Koki,” Kame snaps, hunching down further. “Before he comes back, we need to work out who’s gonna... pop the question, so to speak.”

Koki squirms a little, glances at Maru who is staring stonily at his knees, fists balled like an assault victim, and then at Ueda, currently giving Kame a bit of a side-eye, jaw working with the gum he chews.

“You seemed to be all right with asking before,” Koki finally replies uncomfortably, shifting back in his seat. They’re all weirdly close.

“I _can’t_ ask again; he won’t tell _me_ a thing!”

Koki squints at the three of them. He doesn’t like where this is going.

“You have to understand, Koki,” Maru finally says, emphasizing each word, his knuckles going white on his lap. “It’s important that we know. I-if any of us is on _any_ type of list belonging to Taguchi...” He pauses, not looking up from his knees, but his eyes widen all the same. “...It’s _just important that we know_!”

Koki stands. “Ask him yourself if you want to know!”

“Ko~ki!” both Nakamaru and Kame chorus and Koki expels an unhappy breath before meeting Ueda’s silent, observing gaze. Ueda shrugs in a faint lift of one shoulder, eyes drifting away.

“You’re saying you don’t want to know?” Maru interjects slowly.

Kame crosses his legs, which effectively results in his accidentally kicking Maru in the shin. “Or is it that you already know?”

“I _don’t_ know who’s on that list and I’m not going to ask because I. don’t. care, ok?” He has to shuffle a bit to get out of the enclosure of chairs, but overall he manages to place some distance between himself and the neurotic pair plus Ueda.

Maru swallows before leaning back in his chair still a bit wide-eyed. “How am I going to get any sleep tonight?” This is spoken in a high tone of distress.

To Koki’s lack of response, they all sit in an unhappy stretch of silence. Koki turns his back on them because Kame is giving him the evil eye. He’s made up his mind, though. It’s stupid anyway and embarrassing for everyone all around and he’s sure Taguchi’s _dying_ to tell him. Koki will listen when the time comes. What’s important at present is to think of the right comeback when Taguchi tells him it’s his name. Should be funny over drinks or something.

And he doesn’t care.

“It’s just such a violating practice…” Maru mutters at his back.

Koki can’t reply because the conference room door swings open and slams against the wall. Maru leaps up and Kame whirls around. Taguchi makes his smiling entrance, but thoughts of the offending mysterious list are discarded as Koki spots the glitter gold at Taguchi’s collar. That glittery, yellow bowtie, pinned lopsidedly to his neck only paling in comparison to his his ten thousand watt grin.

Even Ueda’s shoulders slump as a collective groan rings in the air.

 

So it is entirely possible that Koki expected Taguchi to offer the truth the moment they were alone. He had opened the door for opportuntity on more than one occasion particularly with the line “You can talk about anything if you feel like, kay?”

He’d been on the receiving end of a wordless thrilled look and Koki actually almost expected him to whip out the list.

For three days, just nothing. Playing video games, nothing. Texting random pictures, nothing. And Koki can’t help feeling a bit chilled by the idea that Taguchi never had any intention of telling anyone and least of all Koki. It was unspoken and he knew he was Taguchi’s best friend (ok, yeah, whatever) so why shouldn’t he be the one…

They have an all-group meeting that Friday and were Koki a less insightful man he’d have assumed Maru and Kame were over it. However, he knows neurotic better than that. He sits across from Ueda perusing a drama script and receives a semi-sleepy, content look.

Koki briefly contemplates being in a group full of Uedas. Very, _very_ briefly.

Maru enters the conference room; he’s wearing a thick black winter jacket zipped up to his throat, and judging from the overall bulk, he’s got a few coats on underneath that one. Of all the idiotic…

“It’s not like he’s going to undress you without your consent!” Koki snaps. It’s only after that utterance that Koki wonders why it made him upset in the first place.

“I. am. _cold_ ,” Maru snaps back, settling in his chair stiffly, the opening of his coat swallowing him so that his nose pokes just over the collar’s fur. Under his eyes are bruised stains of exhaustion and he stares balefully around the room.

The slam of the door being swung open on its hinges signifies one Kame-chan and an irritable entrance. Sepia-brown shades and a scan of the room for a Taguchi, finding none, he settles in his own chair.

“Yokoyama, Ryo and Ohkura all know about the list,” he informs them swiftly.

Koki nearly swallows his gum.

Maru shrinks down in his chair. “Ahhh, I can’t take this~!”

“Whatever happened to not caring what Taguchi does?!” Koki barks before he can stop himself. “And even if you’re _on_ the list, do you think he’d ever actually _do_ anything about it? This is Taguchi we’re talking about!”

“You guys are talking about me?”

Never has a tone been more flattered and Taguchi strides in looking so fondly down on them all. Koki braces his hands on the sides of his chair, slipping forward, on edge as Kame’s expression smoothens and Maru emerges from his coat. Taguchi takes his time moving to his seat, sending Koki a neutral and grim smile. They all fall into a very still, watching state as they wait for Taguchi to open his bag.

He sits there, chill as ever, unscrews the cap on a water bottle and takes a sip. Swallows. No visible sign whatsoever that he could possibly be aware of their uneasy stares. It seems as though the day will begin and end with Taguchi’s silence and more non-result. Koki stares unhappily at the table, wishing they’d just drop it.

And _then_ Taguchi makes the mistake of resting his chin on his fist and flickering a curious glance at Maru.

“That’s _it_!”

Maru jumps up, chair clattering back as he tears at the zipper of his first jacket. Kame gasps and Ueda squints as Maru stalks around the table toward Taguchi, removing his layers in a struggling motion, mid-step, sleeves flailing. Taguchi’s eyes widen.

“You wanna play games?!” Maru snarls, ripping at his sweater and Koki realises the soft sound of horror is coming from his own mouth. He claps his hand over his face as Maru reaches Taguchi’s end of the table. “Well, I’m not playing with you, OK? You will remove my name from that list immediately!”

Taguchi adopts an innocently surprised look and a smile to go with it. “Nakamaru-kun, how do you _know_ that you’re even on my list?”

Maru falls silent, lips pursed as he squints suspiciously. “Am I?”

Koki never knew it was possible for someone to shrug with pure delight before this. “I don’t know...are you? Heh, do you think you would be?” Taguchi bites his lip, quivering with a sudden silent laugh.

Maru actually stamps his foot. “TAGUCHI, REMOVE MY NAME FROM THAT LIST!”

Taguchi looks affronted. “Do you know how much lamination costs, Nakamaru!?”

Three gasps ring in the air and Koki’s jaw drops. Triumphant and outraged, Maru points a long imperious finger at Taguchi. “So you admit it! Do you realise that this defiles almost every brand of social decorum there is! Stop coveting my body with your stupid _lists_!”

Taguchi opens his mouth with a decidedly displeased expression, but it’s just then that their manager and some execs walk in. For the sake of Maru’s much avowed decorum, he huffs and picks up his discarded coats and settles in his seat. As papers are distributed and the daily drone begins, Maru jabs a finger on the table quite sternly.

“This isn’t over,” he mouths, eyes wide.

Koki feels a little bit ill.

 

The meeting ends and Koki fiddles with his keys as he heads for his car. The noise of footsteps picking up behind him makes him turn and Taguchi gives him a bright wave.

“It’s been a long week, huh?” he says softly, slipping his hands in his pockets and slowing his stride to match Koki’s

He resists pointing out the clear reason it was such a hell ride of a week and shrugs.

“Wanna hang out tonight?” Taguchi says, bumping him with his elbow lightly. “We could finish planning our hike.”

Koki doesn’t know how to reply. Trouble being he wants to hang out, but he also wants Taguchi to go away. If he said that he’d just sound crazy. Worst still, at the moment, when he breathes, it feels like something iron closes on his chest. He hates this type of sigh most and he looks determinedly ahead feeling convinced somehow that the sickness would only spread if he so much as looks Taguchi in the eye.

“No,” Koki mutters. He clears his throat. “I have to—have to wash my hair tonight.”

Taguchi stares at him. Then at his hair; his mouth quirks up, all teeth and intensifying all sick gut feelings close by. Koki blinks and pushes him aside to open his car door. Taguchi lingers, arm over the roof. “See you tomorrow afternoon then?”

Koki, now sitting behind the wheel, has the words for it. _What’s the deal with this list thing?_ or _Hey, if I’m on that list; you could tell me. I won’t judge_ but when he opens his mouth he just says, “Yeah.”

 

Nothing quite starts a Saturday morning than someone pounding on his door at three a.m. Koki pushes aside his black kitty with red ears eye mask before slipping out of his blankets.

“He’s going to update the list sometime today!” Kame, looking sleepless and jittery, hollers the moment the door opens.

Koki squints, still half-asleep. He’s in a dream and it’s a really dumb one. “Wh-what?”

“The list! Taguchi’s to- _do_ list! I know he’s going to update it today!” For good measure Kame seizes him about the shoulders and gives him an abrupt and swift shake.

“Augh! What about it!” Koki slaps his hands away. “Why are you here? It’s three!”

Kame huffs angrily before side-stepping and stalking toward Koki’s kitchen and it’s only then that Koki sees Ueda in the doorway, looking in curiously. “Morning,” he mumbles, beginning to kick off his shoes, as he crosses the genkan.

“Morning…” Koki echoes, watching while Ueda brushes past him to follow Kame into the kitchen. “Any other crazy celebrities in the hallway or can I shut the door?” he yells after them.

 

“Oreo blizzard ice cream,” Ueda murmurs complacently, head in the freezer. “If I find strawberries, you’ll be my new soul mate.”

Koki plops himself down across from Kame at the kitchen island and rests his head on the counter mournfully. “You won’t. I’m pretty sure Yucchi has a patent on them,” he murmurs into the granite.

“As I was saying,” Kame continues, now armed with a cup of Koki’s coffee with even more jitters to complement it. “When I interrogated Yokoyama, Ryo, and Ohkura yesterday, they mentioned that they _knew_ they were on Taguchi’s list—“

Koki rubs his eyes fretfully. “Why would you even ask—“

“ _AND_ that they also knew they ‘wouldn’t be for very long’. At first I was all like ‘they’ve worked out a way to convince him to remove their names’ and then last night when I followed Taguchi—“

“You followed him?!”

“—he met _up_ with them. All three, Koki!”

“So?” Koki says.

“At Ryo’s house!”

“SO?!”

“So Ryo only ever takes people to his place for _sex_!”

Ueda, having spooned up a mouthful of oreo blizzard, sets it back in the cup and pushes it away wordlessly.

Koki lifts his head. “You expect me to believe he went out last night and had a foursome with three fourths of Kanjani Eight?!”

Kame squeezes his coffee cup between both palms heatedly. “I don’t _expect_ you to do anything but get dressed and help!”

He’s beginning to feel every inch of this fucked up morning as his body catches up. “Please, Kame; let me go back to sleep,” he begs pitifully.

Kame gets up and starts tugging on his arm. “No one sleeps until we solve this crisis. All or nothing, right? _Right_?”

“Were you always this obnoxious?” Koki moans as he stumbles off his stool, grabbing the island for support. “Don’t quote conveniently vague English lyrics at me~!”

“Listen to meee, Koki,” Kame grunts, trying to detach him from the island. “I searched his car and found a pamphlet for the place he goes to laminate that damn list! We can intercept him and steal the old one when he updates it.”

“Nnn-no!” He digs his fingers into the granite counter. Ueda picks up his ice cream again. Apparently, the pain and suffering of the innocently sleepy just makes him hungry.

“Don’t you get it?!” Kame hisses as he tugs valiantly on Koki’s rigid form glued to the kitchen island. “The day he brought it to work he had _just_ updated it. That morning I saw him talking on the phone with Miyata!”

“That means nothing!”

“ _Saying_ that he left his socks at his place! Who removes socks at another person’s house except for the sheer purpose of SEX!”

Kame gets Koki dislodged with these words and Koki now on hands and knees, crawls like he’s never crawled. He figures if he barricades his bedroom door…

Taguchi had asked _him_ to hang out last night.

Kame grabs his legs and Koki face-plants. He pauses on that thought as his face throbs with the impact. “You say it was last night? Like right after work?”

Kame’s tone neutralises. “Yeah. He got in his car and spent some time on the phone and then off he went to meet them at Ryo’s place.”

Koki gets unsteadily to his feet, using the wall. “So he updates the list whenever he sleeps with someone.”

“And from the little I saw, there are a _lot_ of people on that list. It was numbered; like a ranking.”

Not all that fond of the commiserating way Kame is currently eyeing him, Koki clears his throat and speaks airily. “Heh, well, you’ll have to intercept or whatever on your own. It’s none of my business. Taguchi and me don’t really…”

Why would Taguchi ask him to hang out one second and then go off and…

“Kame, so help me if I miss my run this morning…” Ueda begins suddenly quite formidably.

Koki frowns. “Wait, what are you even doing here, Ueda?”

Kame tugs his arm once more fruitlessly. “I picked him up first; from here we’re going to get Maru for Operation Steal the Old List Without Being Seen When Taguchi Makes the New List.”

“Ok, first of all,” Koki sighs. “If you don’t actually have a name for it, then don’t describe your intentions and pin the word ‘operation’ in front of it. Second, I’m not going with you.”

It doesn’t make Kame happy, but it’s fortunate for Koki that Ueda has things to do (granted so does Kame which bears the question of how a man juggling about three steady jobs under the same title of talent has this much time for conflict of interest sleuthing).

When they shut the door behind them, Koki doesn’t sleep. Instead he stands in his empty kitchen. He considers Taguchi. All six feet of him and his equally oversized smiles. And Koki feels lonely and usually that just makes him angry.

Right now, however, it’s just as it is: lonely.

 

He isn’t surprised when he goes into work early afternoon and Kame is practically sitting on his hands at the entrance of the building. Maru is once again wearing several layers of coats and perched like an overstuffed plushie on the end of one of the decorative planters. His first instinct is to think they saw the list and that it’s more horrifying than they could’ve imagined it.

Koki doesn’t dare make an expression. “You guys…”

Kame grimaces. “We haven’t seen it yet, just so you know.”

Maru sinks into his jacket igloo. “We waited outside Ryo’s place until about eleven and then he emerged from that haven of depravity to, as Kame predetermined, update his roster of _licentiousness_! We waited at a café where we were nearly seen because Kame chose to engage in _shamelessness_ with the barista!”

“Augh! Nakamaru, just drop it.” Kame snaps. “The monk act isn’t fooling anyone!”

Maru shoots him a filthy look and from somewhere in his cave of coats, another zipper goes up. “I just think there’s a specific time and a specific place for all this—“

Kame’s lip curls. “Specific time and place just sounds like an S&M dungeon! Sounds pretty damn _specific_ to _me_! Besides, he was an obvious Giants fan!”

“Ohh, I’m sure you hoped he was a—“ Maru’s air quotes wind up looking nuttier than anything. “ _Giant_.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Ugh, stop. Just both of you stop,” Koki wails. “So what’s happened?”

Maru chews his lip. “We split up and lost Ueda. He just texted me that he got the list and he’s coming in a few minutes.”

Koki swallows. “And Taguchi?”

“Well, our best hope is that Ueda gets here before him.”

 

And Ueda does. He jogs up to them from his car, holding up a manila envelope. Looking wordlessly peaved, he shoves it at Maru and Kame. “The both of you owe me so much right now and the payback will be so severe that even our descendents who’ve forgotten your name will feel it.”

“Fine, fine,” Kame says, grabbing the envelope.

“Why is it in an envelope?” Koki queries tonelessly.

Ueda side eyes him. “The nice man at the Internet Café gave me one when I asked him to donate the leftover recycling for my school project.”

“Huh,” Maru says. “Didn’t think they just handed that stuff out.”

“Oh, _wow_!” Kame breathes.

They all turn. Kame’s holding the list, eyes wide. Koki thinks he should probably choose now to walk away.

“There are a total of sixty-four names on here. Right, sixty-one after this morning but look, they’re numbered like I said. A _ranking_. One is Ohkura, two is Yoko and three is Ryo…and at number _four_ ~”

Maru goes a sudden white and drops, the air in his coats hissing out as he settles on the planter. “I’m next. He’s coming for me!”

Koki doesn’t breathe as Kame’s eyes dart down the page, pausing at each line. “Don’t know her. Don’t know _her_. What? Tegoshi at number eighteen?! Has Tegoshi ever even spoken a word edgewise to him? Ugh. A few more people I don’t know. Well, _there’s_ Koyama; that’ll make _him_ happy plus there’s a little asterisk beside it. Wonder what that means…”

As Ueda pats a quivering Maru on the back and places his hand in Maru’s double-layered mittened hand, Koki crosses his arms over his chest. He feels a little silly. No he feels an _ass hole_ because now that it’s this real: these names and the list and Maru turning into a nervous wreck and Kame reading it out like it’s a tabloid. In his mind, a small seed of something keeps spiralling, digging deep and settling in a deep cranny of his thoughts. It’s a harmful thought to its very basic nature. Harmful because it’s a cold consolation; more lies to tell himself. Lies that sound a hell of a lot like _I don’t care_

It’s just that all these people, do they even mean anything to Taguchi? If Koki’s not on this list, then maybe…

He feels so stupid.

And he can’t stop thinking it.

“Well, well, well,” Kame murmurs, his eyes peeking out from the top of the page, leering at Koki. “This is an interesting development.”

Koki surfaces from his thoughts and watches Kame’s eyebrows twitch with some vague sense of oncoming revelation. “What?” his voice doesn’t work. It’s a rasp of a sound.

“Last and at the very bottom in bright blue font is number sixty-four Tanaka Koki.”

It’s like a formal cremation of everything he’s felt and thought these past days. He can feel the winter out here where they all stand huddled together, winds and cold mockery. The corners of his eyes feel hot.

“Why aren’t you guys going inside,” comes the remark, out of the stone and cold and it’s the burn of Taguchi’s presence behind him. Koki turns, the inside of his throat feeling scraped raw with each breath that’s not too close to a choke.

Kame fumbles with the list, trying to hide it under his coat quickly as Taguchi’s dark eyes flicker down to it. It’s obvious from the way he stops in his tracks, looks from the list to Maru’s trepidation-filled, shaking form to Kame hugging the list, but it’s only as Taguchi’s gaze drags up to Koki’s that Koki notices his own stilted breaths and the burn behind his eyes, lump in his throat.

And all he can think in his own little insecure, self-defeating world is _I thought I was special, you bastard_.

 

 

Good mood or bad; awkward or natural, they know how to answer their magazine interviews and Koki has very little memory of what was said nor what he replied. He finds himself conscious of the interchange of empathetic looks from his bandmates and Taguchi’s bright black eyes watching too closely.

Too closely for someone on the bottom of a long list.

Koki’s not about to get passive-aggressive with it. He’ll treat Taguchi the same when he’s all right, when he doesn’t care anymore. Because he won’t. Not the way he has.

Sometimes it helps to wait for the things that didn’t feel true before to feel true the next second.

When they’re done, Koki does the equivalent of a speed walk out the door, nearly tripping over Maru waddling past in his dome of coats. Of course he would forget that Taguchi has a very, very minimal sense of social cues. The implied _leave me alone_ of his quick departure must’ve screamed _tail me to the parking lot outside and grab my arm_

“Do you have time today? Your hair looks fine,” Taguchi says quickly, eyebrows creased with urgency.

Koki shakes his arm free and attempts to make a beeline for his car. “I’m busy,” is the most he can manage.

Taguchi picks up his steps and hops around him a bit. “What could you possibly have to do today?”

“My—uh—my—“

“Your _nothing_ ,” Taguchi fills in swiftly, standing between Koki and his door. “It’s either your car or mine.”

Koki scans the lot for the others. “Mine and _I’m_ driving.”

“Cool…”

 

The streetlights start to flicker on as the car hums down an expressway, stone blue early winter evening bathing everything in a sombre dress and Taguchi is silent in the passenger seat, looking out the window. The lines of the street go on and on, white stripes disappearing underneath the hood as Koki steps on the gas.

It’s already eighty kilos they rush into and Taguchi adjusts his seat back, stretching his legs.

“I don’t know where we’re going,” Koki says.

“Me neither,” Taguchi sighs and flips the switch on the heater.

The rumbling breath of it dances in their silence. Koki wants desperately not to start shouting at him, wants to act like it’s all OK because if he’s the one who says anything, it’ll just change everything. And he’ll be the one who ruined it. Taguchi can walk away from him for being too serious, can take his time growing up, can act like what they were heading toward was never that serious. That goddamn list!

It’s unfair.

“I’m really sorry you had to see that list,” Taguchi murmurs finally.

Koki squeezes the wheel, staring at the static green traffic lights ahead, reading license plates.

“It was just my way of feeling organised and you’re my friend, a good friend too.” His words hit Koki like a seeping hot sickness. Taguchi even sighs. “I didn’t want you to get mixed up in my head and think that I’m a bad person. I know you’re mad at me, and I know it’s selfish but I kind of wish you’d just ignore what you saw on that list. It doesn’t really mean anything.”

Exit in thirty. Koki clenches his teeth. Generosity never felt this disgusting. He will not _say a thing_.

“So if we could just go on as we were, let things happen. I like you; this year’s been so much fun because of you, because you’ve been around me. I don’t want something I just did for fun to wreck all that. So yeah, just ignore it.”

He’s looking at Koki now, probably looking all cheery-eyed and mouth quirked as he makes his words around his commiserating smile. Koki used to deeply dislike him for that.

“I’ll probably call Nakamaru tomorrow and explain.” Soft laughter. “I bet he thinks I’m going to come for him when he’s sleeping or something.”

Exit next right. The turnpike has a roadside station and Koki manages to pull over before he kills the engine. The glow from the rest area shop are all that lights up Taguchi’s nonplussed expression.

“You know what? I _genuinely_ used to chalk up a lot of your dumber moments to the fact that you were _actually_ that dumb but now I know you and there is _no fucking excuse_ for you to be this dense!”

“Wha…”

Koki rips off his seatbelt so he can turn and look him right in the eye, his rage like a fleet raking up his back. “I’m not pissed at you because you put my name on a list of people you think are attractive! I’m pissed because you’re an insensitive bastard sometimes and I thought we were _best_ friends. Because for all that we’ve been through and all the secrets you’ve told me, you felt the need to keep this little thing a secret and then it comes and blows up in our faces and you have the bullshit audacity to tell me to _ignore_ it. You even put me on the very bottom as if a punch in the face wasn’t enough that you just thought you’d come along and _secretly_ kick me in the balls!”

Taguchi’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out. His thick swallow is the only break in Koki’s tirade.

“I don’t care anymore that it’s stupid and yes, I know what this sounds like, but even if you had no intention of telling me, don’t go around making people feel like they’re your number one when you’re just gonna go home and type a big sixty four next to their name after a long list of people you barely even speak to!” Koki shuts his eyes; he can hear his tone breaking and feels even more idiotic. He shouldn’t have agreed to hang out so soon; everything’s still raw.

He takes a deep breath and fumbles with the car door, clambering out. As he slams the door shut behind him, he already knows he’s going to regret what he just said. It takes a moment of steady counting before he can light up a cigarette and lean against the boot of the car

The smoke wafts up as he exhales mingling with condensation in the cold air. Taguchi’s door opens and when Koki glances at him, he rests his arms on the roof, peering at him over his curved forearms.

Koki sighs. “You were right, though. Should’ve just ignored it.” He looks back out at the passing traffic outside the lot.

Taguchi straightens and shuts his door, coming around with his hands in his jacket pockets. He sighs as well, leaning sideways against the boot, one leg bending behind the other. “No, I realised what you were saying and I just thought—“

“No, _seriously_ , let’s just not.”

“Koki…”

“How you rank me isn’t important anyway. I took it too personally; I’m sorry.” He takes a pull and pointedly doesn’t look at Taguchi.

Taguchi straightens. “Koki, it’s not—“

“I _said_ leave it. It’ll only get worse if you start handing me charitable comfort.” He finally turns and elbows Taguchi lightly, managing a smile. “Hey, maybe one day I’ll move up to eighteen, beat out Tegoshi.”

“Koki, it’s not a ranking!” Taguchi snaps.

The fuzzy rush of cars in the distance and evening birds seems still as they look at one another.

“…It’s not?”

Taguchi’s grimaces, probably uncomfortable with his own outburst. “No, it’s not.”

Koki thinks about this and squints, tapping his cigarette. “So you mean to say you just listed those names arbitrarily? With no consideration to their order? As if whoever you were thinking of came to mind in that order?”

Taguchi shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking at Koki guardedly. “Ok, well, not exactly like that—“

Koki throws his cig filter down and stomps on it. “Then don’t give me that crap! You shouldn’t have even put me on the list if it was going to be like this! There’s got to be a better excuse for the fact that you have a year’s worth of people numbered before you deliberately put me last! I want to not care about it but I do! Why the hell would you do something that awful—“

“Because it’s all supposed to end with _you_!”

They’re already looking at one another but as Taguchi’s words settle in, they both look away. Koki turns, back against the car again, staring off at nothing, words echoing and their meaning grinding his breath to a halt.

Taguchi groans, leaning his head back. “Ahh, I’ve said it.”

“Damn right you’ve said it,” Koki sighs, rubbing his forehead fretfully. His whole head feels swirly and light. Vision brighter suddenly. An embarrassing euphoria. He tries really hard to stop his lips from curving up, but he can’t and his face begins to burn.

Taguchi folds his arms and lets his face fall in one palm, massaging his temples with his thumb and forefinger. They stay like that while the breeze gets colder and the sky starts very slowly to edge from blue to black.

“We should probably… go,” Taguchi murmurs hesitantly.

“Right,” Koki says quickly, whirling to get back in the car.

They’re still quiet as Koki fiddles with the ignition and Taguchi huddles a bit with his hands still in his jacket pockets, looking carefully at his own shoes.

“I can’t drive,” Koki mutters, letting go of the ignition.

The seat’s leather groans when Taguchi turns. “Why not?”

“My hands keep shaking,” Koki admits, clenching his fists on his lap.

Taguchi’s breathy laughter. “I guess we wait then. I can’t really focus either.”

“Yeah but that’s just normal for you,” Koki quips before leaning his head on the wheel, squinting at Taguchi in the dark. “So it all ends with me, huh?”

Taguchi smiles, eyebrows curved with embarrassment. “Stop~”

“I’m just trying to clarify here,” Koki says, smiling as Taguchi falls back laughing. “Just in the event that you…you know, wanted to get a few more names in before you get around to me.”

Taguchi gives a half-shrug, laughter falling into a gorgeous smile. “It’s not really a to-do list, I guess.”

Koki straightens, leaning one arm on the shoulder of his seat. “Why’s that?”

“I usually prefer to do those in order and…if I ever skipped ahead, it wouldn’t be like this.”

Koki isn’t smiling anymore. “Like this?” He stares and stares as Taguchi shifts, leaning forward to slip fingers around his jacket lapel.

“Where the last one on the list makes everything else not matter anymore.”

It’s Koki that leans in but Taguchi that grazes his lips over the corner of Koki’s mouth, moving like he’s savouring a scent. A quiet, breathing nuzzle against his cheek, warm lips brushing just before pressing over Koki’s. Koki reaches up tentatively between the spaces that Taguchi nips at him, lips closing over his as he brings his palms around Taguchi’s neck.

Taguchi’s hands scrape over his shoulders, pulling at his collar when Koki’s tongue dips past his lips. The sound Taguchi makes when Koki pulls him closer is gratified and he yanks Koki back with more conviction. Koki has to grasp the back of the passenger seat to keep from barrelling him back against the passenger window. Hands slip under his jacket as Taguchi’s mouth explores the line of his throat, sending zigzagging new thrills through his chest down to his stomach. Koki arches and fists Taguchi’s shirt while being dragged atop his lap.

It’s a bit cramped and Taguchi has to move one leg over to the driver’s seat in order to accommodate Koki on his side, but he moans a hopeful sound into Koki’s mouth just from Koki pulling his coat zipper down. They grapple while Koki shakes his own off his shoulders, twisting as Taguchi grabs him about the hips to tug him closer, jeans making a rash noise of friction. Koki is backed against the dashboard when Taguchi sits up to remove his own jacket, hiking his hips up in the struggle.

“Th-the adjusting lever,” Koki gasps against Taguchi’s chest while pulling his sleeve free of his arm. Taguchi nods, fumbling backward for the handle. Koki manages to put his foot against the back of the chair as he balances one knee between Taguchi’s legs and grabs for his glove compartment. Taguchi slouches for a brief second creating the most shocking moment of coarse fricative of them together.

Their eyes meet before Koki’s eyes slide shut, rocking over him before he can stop and Taguchi pulls in to kiss him again, half-biting as he tears at Koki’s belt. He wriggles a bit to get his jeans down at the same time.

“It’s stuck,” Taguchi breathes when they part.

“What?”

“The lever…” There’s a series of clicks and it’s just as Koki finally gets his fingers around the glove compartment latch that the chair swoops backward taking Taguchi with it.

“You pulled the wrong one!”

“Ow,” Taguchi gasps mournfully.

Koki sits back helpfully as he brings the chair back up, reaching properly into the compartment. “You’re lucky I like you,” he says.

Taguchi smiles over his wince as he stretches his legs, pulling Koki forward over him. His long frame bends easily and his back curves under Koki’s palms, pressing forward to graze hot lips over Koki’s chest through the fabric of his shirt. “Yeah, very lucky,” he breathes.

That does it for Koki and he knits his fingers upward through the brush of short hair at Taguchi’s temples to the silky shock of black, grasps and kisses with reverent urgency. Large hands caressing fingertips along the bare skin of his hips, slipping along his waistband, unzipping and dragging the fabric in a vague, hungry tugging motion. Koki feels it all branch up like a curve of ecstasy through his limbs and moans before he lets Taguchi push him back on the dashboard.

The grasp over his ankles to calves, tossing his shoes into the backseat, tugging at the hem of his jeans, pulling and Koki kicks them off, sending Taguchi a rapid look. Whatever Taguchi sees makes him glow, lips curve up and Koki feels the brush of fingers along the backs of his thighs and he thinks of bliss as his head falls back against the windshield of its own accord.

“I think we can do this,” Koki whispers; he has no voice but gasps and the want noises Taguchi’s awakening in him with the potential touch on the backs of his upper thighs.

Taguchi only nods, unbuttoning Koki’s shirt and smoothing his palms up a naked stomach and down, edging around the shape of Koki’s length, walking fingers back and forth as Koki braces against Taguchi’s hard arms, beginning to whimper.

The windows cloud with white and Koki’s fingers slide a translucent line over moisture when Taguchi’s touches make him buck helplessly.

It takes some flexibility and soon Koki is biting his lip when he finally gets the lubricant out of the glove compartment. Taguchi holds the condom packet pursed between his lips as he helps Koki curve one leg up, ankle to shoulder, fingers clenching around the muscles of his calves

Slick and careful, Koki digs his fingers into leather, braces his palm on a cold window as Taguchi presses inward with one finger, circling then penetrating and their lips keep meeting, bursting and fierce black seconds with the ingression of one becoming two. Taguchi devours him, tongue glancing over his lower lip, digging Koki’s lips parted and whispering yes’s to the corner of his mouth.

“Ride me,” Taguchi hisses, trailing hot wet fingers over his hips and Koki thinks he’s forgotten life outside this space. Forgotten they’re in his car, only remembers wordless wishing and hopes a week ago and Junno, Junno, Junno…

Koki wraps his arms tight around the back of his seat, pushes his foot against the backseat and hikes himself up. He surprises both of them that he managed the position and it’s obvious from the way Taguchi groans against his neck. He closes his lips over the tender skin of Koki’s throat, making him arch as he grinds downward again, bracing his thighs against Taguchi’s torso.

When he rocks, hips sliding a shaking reckoning up the both of them, Taguchi screws his eyes shut, biting his lips. He crooks his arms around Koki, bringing him down harder as he bucks upward. The rhythm goes disjointed and Koki wants to keep kissing him, taste moans and feel each rumble of Taguchi’s slow coming to pieces.

Crushed against him, Koki only feels Taguchi’s fist slip between them as his hips circling and grinding brings their gasps to a firm electric crescendo. Koki’s legs burn and Taguchi’s fingers dig in a little too deep, but the pain feels like delicious calamity, balance with the rising slick of Taguchi inside him. Mutters and whimpers.

“Please,” Taguchi gasps, squeezing him tight, pulling a wicked rhythm up Koki and it feels like the end.

Koki falls forward on Taguchi when he comes, feeling fluid slick their stomachs over one another and Taguchi leans his head back, making soundless words as Koki curls into him, still rocking all thighs, back muscles and moisture.

Taguchi’s lips are deep pink, bitten and parting when the long, hot moan quakes out of him and he arches beautifully, knees curving on either side of Koki. It brings them together in the narrow space between seat and dashboard and Koki shudders at his shudder, caressing Taguchi’s lips as he comes down.

 

Koki can already feel the burn of his more stretched muscles when Taguchi moves under him moments and moments later, stretching for something in his jacket pocket. Koki’s eyelids droop; he ignores the fact that he’s wrapped around Taguchi at present in his car parked at the far corner of a roadside station. Taguchi’s fingers dance up and down his spine, pressing over ridges curiously and complacently.

Taguchi sighs, and Koki feels a semi-cold towelette being used to clean them up. He can barely move. “You drive,” Koki mumbles.

“I’d do a lot of things with you, Koki, but I won’t drive naked.”

“Kay.” He doesn’t move. “We’ll do everything but that.”

Taguchi’s chuckles might as well be a lullaby, feathering in the cooling air around them. He laughs a little too long and a little too delightedly for it to just be a reaction to Koki’s remark.

“What’s up?”

Taguchi reaches back and hands Koki his pants, still shaking with mirth. “Was just remembering Nakamaru in all his layers. He looked like a house with stick legs.”

Koki smirks, beginning to laugh. “He even stripped in a fit of moral outrage. There were three coats on the floor.”

“Ah~” Taguchi sighs. “Would it be too messed up of me not to tell him that the list is gone?”

Koki sits up. “Of course!”

Taguchi deflates some, still smiling at the thought however.

Koki takes a short moment and remembers Maru waddling behind him down the hallway not even an hour ago.

“Wait a week, at least.”


End file.
